


How to Live a Life

by MythsAndMythos



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Immortal Ryan, M/M, Mortal Gavin, Sad but uplifting, suicidal moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:02:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8108668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythsAndMythos/pseuds/MythsAndMythos
Summary: When you live forever there are a lot of things you stop thinking about





	

When you live forever there are a lot of things you stop thinking about. Physical pain is one of them. Nothing can hurt you when you come back to life as good as new. Lose a limb, blow yourself up, fall from lethal heights, it’s all fair game. There is no danger.

So what do you do when you slowly stop feeling? When even you’re legs collapsing underneath you isn’t enough to bring your soul back to life. That’s when Ryan realizes there’s a whole new way to hurt.

Ryan spent his first lifetime with those he loved until watching them age and die until it grew too painful. After that he became nomadic, never staying anywhere long enough to put down roots or make connections. He’d travel with people but never for long, and he never let a sense of familiarity blossom between them.

And that worked.

After hundreds of years, Ryan forgot what it felt like to lose someone he cared about. Ryan forgot what it was like to care. That was, until Gavin.

The world seemed to shine a little brighter when Gavin was around. The dull edges of life that Ryan had become so accustomed to came into sharper focus. He felt himself breathing clear air for the first time in years. He could feel the sun as if it radiated from the golden boy who had carved his way into Ryan’s old, rusted heart. 

But all good things must come to an end. Ryan may have left his past behind him, but time never forgets. Their love may have been strong, but mortality was stronger.

After so many incredible feats Ryan lost the taste for danger, for thrills, but Gavin was young and reckless. He looked for the adrenaline high that Ryan had long stopped feeling. The worry that clawed at Ryan’s gut every time Gavin left the house tugged at Ryan, but he would never stop Gavin from living his life. 

No matter how many times he told Gavin to be careful, the lad didn’t listen. Ryan would hear his squawking and know the brit had pulled off some amazing trick that Ryan could only chuckle at.

That was, until the night the squawks never came. The night Ryan was left waiting in their apartment for hours, checking his phone every minute, hoping for a sign from his lad. The night Ryan got a call from the emergency room, telling him the hospital and room number for him to rush to. The night Ryan spent holding Gavin’s weakening grip in his own as he prayed to every god and in every language that he’d ever taken the time to learn.

The night his life ended again. 

Ryan’s body may have become immune to damage, but his heart was vulnerable. He’d forgotten over the years what it was like to care, and now in the course of one night, he remembered what it was like to lose. 

That night, for the first time in hundreds of years, Ryan wept. He cried and he raged and he yelled and he screamed. Even more headless of his body, Ryan looked for a release, for a way to join his lost lad. But nothing he did would bring the brit back, and nothing he did would bring him to the lad. 

Ryan retreated into himself. The shadows under his eyes grew deeper and darker, his face grew gaunt and his body thin. He stopped caring for himself, stopped caring for life. 

He avoided the British Isles. Even the hint of the once beloved accent would send him further into his depression. He hid for years, alone in the darkness as the world continued turning and time passed by. 

Years later, when Ryan emerged from his self-exile, he made his way to the one place he should have visited a long time ago. 

Gavin’s grave was well maintained, perhaps too well. Nothing about it spoke of the spontaneous, bubbly, chaotic man buried beneath the surface. Ryan stood only for a moment, looking at the manicured lawn and precisely carved lettering on the headstone, before he had to leave.

Gavin wasn’t here. 

Gavin was in the rush of wind whipping through Ryan’s hair as he sped down the freeway. Gavin was in the jolt of adrenaline as Ryan looked over the edge of a particularly tall building. He was in the laughter Ryan heard as he passed strangers in the street and the joy Ryan felt as he cradled a small stray kitten he’d found outside their apartment.

The shadow of Gavin was everywhere and nowhere. He was with Ryan and just out of reach. 

Slowly Ryan came alive again. He healed. He remembered what it was like to care, what it was like to love and lose, and he learned from it. The heat of the sun on bare skin and the smell of flowers in the air. Everything returned to him. Slowly at first, and then all at once.

The world was a new place, a better place, a brighter place thanks to the sunshine that took up permanent residence in Ryan’s memory. He no longer saw the world as the dull, lifeless entity he was forced to endure through the ages. 

Ryan let himself feel again, knowing that each time he lost someone it would hurt but it would be worth it. He made more friends, met more lovers, settled in new and interesting cities.

Sometimes he would move on before time could take his love from him, but sometimes he stayed until the end. Sometimes he had to honor the memory of the departed, and Gavin was always first on his list. The boy that taught him to live again.

The years passed for Ryan, but he wasn’t just surviving anymore. He lived with the knowledge that every life he touched he could make better in some little way, and every life that touched him would leave a memory that would last a lifetime or more. And he lived bathed in the warmth of those constant memories.

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me at mythsandmythos.tumblr.com


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